


Dangling on a String

by legoline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insanity, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legoline/pseuds/legoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been two years since Dean and Sam disappeared. When Ellen, Jo and Bobby find the brothers they're beaten, broken and perhaps, beyond hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dangling on a String

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is darker themed than my usual stuff, and deals with violence, torture and insanity. You have been warned.

They find Sam in a cage, wearing only blood-stained jeans that sag down past his hips. Curled up lying half on his back, half on the side, his torso is only visible as blotches of different shades of red and pink. The colours take on the shapes of bruises, abrasions and burns when the three of them step closer, and Sam’s skin is covered in a fine layer of sweat. His head is lolled to one side limply, but his eyes are only half-closed. His breath comes in heavy rattles, and there are welts around his wrists but the ropes or shackles seem to have come off a while ago.

Their steps are loud and clear on the floor, but Sam doesn’t raise his head to look up.

His hair is cut so short that it looks shaven off, entire wisps of hair missing in parts. His face is terribly bruised and surprisingly clean-shaven. Even in the dim lighting, his weight loss is obvious to Bobby, but it seems as though the demons made sure Sam’s condition remained well enough so he wouldn’t die.

The cage is placed in the middle of the room, not high enough for a man to stand, not wide enough to lie down and stretch. Just big enough to make man seem small within it. The bars shine in golden brass. There is no lock on the door to the cage, as if the demons didn’t expect Sam to take off in the first place, and the door opens with a long creak.

The rest of the room is empty, no furniture, no pictures, no nothing. Except for that cage and some blood splatters on the wooden floorboards. Demons don’t need nice things; all they require is blood and pain and the smell of death.

They’ve taken the demons out one by one—they being him, Ellen and Jo. Took them almost two years to find out where the Winchester boys had disappeared to and that they’d been held captive by a bunch of sadistic demons. They let only one of the demons live, secured in a Devil’s Trap just outside on the porch, should they need information. Should they need to kill one of them slowly for what they did to the boys.

They thought they were prepared for what they would encounter. They didn’t, however, expect this.

Ellen storms forward, pushes herself past Bobby, and the next thing Bobby sees, she’s kneeling by Sam, gathering him in her arms. His shoulders tremble against her when a tremor shakes him, and she brings one hand up to Sam’s forehead, then leans in a little and whispers something so quiet neither Jo nor Bobby can understand it.

“I think he’s running a fever,” Ellen tells them, voice quavering. She looks at Bobby, and the lines of her face are shaped by shock and anger. Cupping her hand around Sam’s chin, his head lolls against the area of her collarbone. It’s hard to tell how conscious he is because his eyes stare vacantly at some spot that no one else can see; his body is limp in Ellen’s arms and if he’s at all aware of Ellen’s, Jo’s and Bobby’s presence, he’s not showing it.

It’s like there is nothing left in him, no life, no will, no soul.

***

The stairs to the basement are steep and dark. There should be light coming from above, but the bulbs must have burned out a while ago. Demons don’t need light so they probably didn’t bother to replace the bulbs. Bobby gets the flashlight out and switches it on. The door at the bottom of the stairs is eerily unobtrusive; it is made from white wooden planks with no extra locks and a brass key hole. It opens when Bobby turns the knob.

Bobby steps into the black rectangle. The flashlight only illuminates the dark in cones, but it’s strong enough to turn the black into a shade of dark blue where shapes become visible.

“Dean?” Bobby asks into the stillness. He takes another step, and the smell of urine and excrements, mixing up with mildew, inundates him. The air is cold and humid, and somewhere in the back, water is dripping from the ceiling, _plop plop plop_.

Bobby thinks he’s going to be sick when he realises that Dean’s _bound_ to be somewhere down here. Alone in the dark. He almost doesn’t want to see him, not after what Sam looked like...

Then the flashlight finds him. Or finds someone that must be Dean, and for a moment Bobby’s stomach turns over and cramps, and he gags and just barely keeps his food down.

In the corner to the right, there’s what is supposed to be a bed made of straw, but even in the twilight Bobby can tell that the straw’s rotten and barely covering the stone floor. Here and there it glistens with dried blood. On it, a figure lies curled up. Too thin arms stick out of a too big t-shirt, a shirt Bobby knows Dean used to fill out, and the pair of jeans dangles around the legs in big folds. Bloodstained and torn, it’s hard to think of them as clothes. Dean’s hair looks like someone got fed up with it at some point and cut it with a knife, and the first image that rushes into Bobby’s mind is Sam in that week after John’s death. Dean’s hair looks like that. The beard too seems to have been cut off with raw force just a few days ago.

Dirt. There’s dirt everywhere. On the clothes, on Dean’s arms and in his face, sharing the place with abrasions and cuts.

Bobby brings a hand to his mouth and gasps.

Something in the straw reflects the light from the flashlight, and upon second glance, he sees it’s plastic. A plastic bottle, Bobby notices, but without the neck. It’s as dirty as the rest of the basement, and Bobby wonders what the hell it might be for, when he remembers the sound of dripping water, and he just _knows._

 _Shit._

Dean turns his head just enough so he can look at the intruder. He squints at the light, glances at Bobby from a gaunt face and sunken eyes, and Bobby directs the flashlight to the other corner where it still illuminates the basement but doesn’t hit Dean directly.

He doesn’t want to think about how it must have been down here, how it must have felt being left alone in the dark and cold, how Dean must have struggled to survive in these conditions, he really doesn’t want to think about it...

“Dean, it’s me,” Bobby says calmly. He barely recognises his own voice, rough and screeching, disappearing into the void of the basement. A hint of a frown ghosts over Dean’s face, and he lifts his head a little. There is no recognition in his eyes, but at least he’s acknowledging Bobby’s presence. That last part feels almost relieving, and it shouldn’t.

Bobby comes closer, step by step, and it causes a visible change in Dean’s posture. He tenses up instantly and tries to push himself up with whatever strength he has left—and that’s not much because he’s barely up when his arms can’t support the weight of his body and give way. Dean collapses back on the ground with a sound somewhere between a defeated sigh and a groan.

He watches as Bobby draws nearer, horror-stricken and with a dash of panic in his eyes. When Bobby kneels down besides him, he protects his head with his arms and his entire body convulses in shivers. Bobby thinks he’s going to be sick again.

He slips an arm under Dean’s shoulders and pulls him up, cradles Dean against his chest. The reek should bother him, but Bobby doesn’t even notice it anymore. Dean whimpers when Bobby rubs a circle on his back—wincing inwardly at every bone that his hand traces through the emaciated body, at every time his fingers feel the spine stick out—and then all tension leaves Dean’s body at once and he slacks in Bobby’s arms.

The flashlight is lying on the ground, dipping the room into a sickly light blue, and Bobby’s just glad nobody is down here with him. He doesn’t want anyone to see him as he kneels there, with Dean broken in his arms, crying.

***

Sam was the one they really wanted, the demon in the Devil’s Trap tells them later while Bobby drowns him in holy water. The mighty boy king, they had wanted to have their fun with him. And fun they had. Mocking him, putting him in that cage, beating and kicking him, shaving his hair off, pouring poison down his throat that made him ill and hallucinate, but not die. They never let him come close enough to die. They just had their fun with him. Day after day.

Dean on the other hand? Yeah, they locked that one in the basement, thinking that it could be fun to watch him break, and forgot about him most of the time. Occasionally they got bored with Sam and decided to give Dean an extra treatment, to give him his share of the fun, and sometimes they forgot the other hunter downstairs for days before they granted him a bit of water and some bread. Most of the time, though, Dean had been kept alone in the cold, in the dark...for two years. The demons didn’t really expect Dean to hold out this long, but he was tougher than they’d thought.

***

They’ve put up two cots in the guest room, but with the state that the boys are in Ellen suggests that maybe they should be in different rooms for the time being. Bobby agrees, and Jo flies up the stairs to make the rearrangements. It takes a moment, and then they hear her curse, thuds and metal clanging as she tries to get one of the folding beds downstairs.

Dean’s head snaps up at the sounds. He whimpers, and it’s such a helpless, panicked sound that the skin on Bobby’s neck starts crawling. He brings his hand up to Dean’s shoulder and squeezes it gently, but it doesn’t help.

“Dean, it’s okay,” he says. “It’s just Jo.”

But it’s like Dean isn’t even listening.

Bobby has lowered him to a chair because Sam’s occupying the couch. Dean and Sam are within sight of each other, but it’s like they don’t see the other at all. Sam’s staring into the distance, fighting for breath, and Dean’s eyes flicker around the room nervously, never quite settling on anything.

***

Dean’s hair is full of lice, and no matter how weak he is and how much he flinches at each sudden movement, there’s no way around it; they’ve got to take care of it before everything else. He needs a shower just as much as food and rest, and the lice need to go first. Bobby still has some anti-lice shampoo stashed in his cabinet, because if there’s one thing that hunters are prone to catch, thanks to crawling through bushes and hiking through forests, it’s lice.

They undress Dean until he’s completely naked, and Dean’s disturbingly impassive about being nude in front of Bobby and Ellen, like maybe he doesn’t even know the difference between being dressed and being naked anymore.

Only then does the full dimension of Dean’s horrible state fully show. They can count each rib, each joint of his spine as they stand out against his skin. His arms are thin, and his legs look like sticks, and there seems to be no fat or muscle left on his body. His body that is black and blue with bruises. There are parts where the dry skin is sore with rashes. Ellen shoots Bobby a horrified glance and Bobby stares back, and he knows that he looks just as shocked.

They assist Dean into the bathtub, each carefully slipping an arm under a shoulder.

Dean’s whimpering quietly, refusing to sit still, and Bobby wonders where the hell Dean has harboured all this remaining strength, because keeping him in the tub proves to be much more challenging than they assumed.

He tries to wriggle out of Bobby’s grip, while Ellen washes as much of the dirt off as she can. They’re only using plain water because there are so many cuts and bruises, and Ellen points out that it might be too painful to use soap. Dean makes a pathetic sound when the water touches his body, like he’s forgotten what it feels like to be clean, and his fingers drill into Bobby’s arm.

He shakes his head frantically in what must be a nonverbal way of yelling, “I don’t want this!” but there’s no way around it.

Both of them work quickly in an unspoken agreement to put Dean out of his misery as soon as possible, and while Bobby remains silent—he doesn’t know what to say to this Dean, can barely bear to look at him—Ellen’s talking to Dean quietly, softly, as if she’s trying to calm down a frightened animal. They can’t be sure Dean understands what they’re saying or if he still knows the meaning of words, so they have to work with inflection and tone.

When his torso, arms and legs are as clean as they’re going to be in the near future, Ellen wraps a towel over Dean’s shoulders and begins to wash his hair with the lice shampoo. Dean has given up his escape attempts, but he pulls his knees up in slow-motion like it hurts to move and makes a heartbreaking sound that might be fear.

Ellen continues talking, even after they’ve heaved Dean out of the tub. She rubs Dean dry like a child, ruffles his hair and presses Dean’s head between her face and hand gently when Bobby gets his razor to shave the matted beard off Dean’s face. Dean flinches and whimpers, but Ellen doesn’t let go, just keeps talking.

“It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you, Bobby’s just going to make the beard go away, it must be itching...”

Ellen glances at Bobby with eyes all glassy, and Bobby knows how she feels but says nothing besides, “We’re almost done.”

When they are, Bobby puts the razor aside and they help Dean into fresh clothes. Ellen places a kiss on the top of Dean’s hair, and for once, Dean doesn’t jerk away.

***

Jo sits with Sam while her mother and Bobby are in the bathroom trying to get Dean cleaned up. She hears her mom talk, sounding like she’s trying to coax Dean into doing something, then something rumbles and there are footsteps inside a bathtub. Jo glances up the stairs; the bathroom’s right above them. The voices are muffled, but she can still read the worried tone.

Beside her, Sam doesn’t even stir when Jo tries to wash off some of the dirt from his chest. Dean was considerably more covered in filth and needed that shower in the bathtub. But Sam’s completely unresponsive and feverish, and cleaning up his wounds like this, with water and disinfectants and then bandages, will have to do for now.

Sam’s eyes are half-closed, vacant and empty. He doesn’t flinch or protest, doesn’t even blink when Jo puts some iodine on the open gashes and cuts. It’s like he’s not really there, like there’s nobody inside. Or so deep down inside that Sam can’t find a way back to himself anymore. She bandages Sam, smears disgustingly smelling tinctures on bruises and rashes, and Sam just lets it happen. His hand is limp in Jo’s when she bandages it. His skin feels dry and rough.

She doesn’t know what to say. She hears her mom talking and wishes she could be like that; her mother always finds the right words. Dean’s lucky she’s there. Jo sighs and wipes sweat from her brow.

“Dean’s just upstairs,” she tries, but not even his brother’s name conjures up a reaction from Sam. He wheezes and that’s all he seems to be doing...breathing. Maybe the only thing he can’t stop himself from doing.

“We need to bring your fever down,” Jo goes on. The silence is bone-crushing. Sam shouldn’t be this silent. She brings her hand to Sam’s forehead, traces along the parts where entire chunks of hair have been ripped out and the skin has gone red and sore. She puts ointment on it, and she hopes the hair will grow back soon and wipe out the horrid memories that must be tied to those bald spots.

Sam swallows the pills without any resistance, and Jo makes him drink another glass of water after that. He seems to be in less worse physical condition than Dean—maybe they fed him more regularly because they wanted to ensure they could have their fun with him for a while longer—but his face is still a pasty colour and his skin is dry and “less worse” just really means that. Still worse, only less worse than Dean.

Sometime during her tending to his injuries, Sam passes out from exhaustion.

***

Bobby’s standing behind Dean, his hands curled around Dean’s shoulders to keep him in a sitting position. Dean tries to shrug out of it, but Bobby’s grip is firm. It’s both a fixation and a safety measure. Neither Bobby nor Ellen is sure Dean can sit up for a long time, and they’re not going to put it to a test. Dean’s shoulders are so thin Bobby can feel each joint and bone under the skin, and he’s almost afraid to even apply pressure to keep Dean seated, afraid that he might break Dean. Everything is so fragile about the kid now.

Ellen is crouched beside Dean and trying to spoon-feed him some soup. She talks to him so he’ll look at her, and once the spoon is in his mouth he swallows obediently but getting the spoon there turns out to be the hard part. Dean frowns and then he replies to her, in sounds that probably mean words to him but really aren’t. They make no sense, are nothing but a mere collection of random noises, and he glances at Ellen hopefully, like he’s half expecting an answer.

Ellen tries a smile, but it never reaches her eyes, and says, “Shhh, it’s okay, eat, you need to eat.”

He seems to like her voice, because he swallows another spoonful. The lack of recognition makes Bobby’s stomach twist.

The three of them are nothing but strangers to Dean, some random people that have put him into a bathtub and shaved him and given him food. Maybe he likes them for that, maybe he even appreciates it. Or maybe the demons have broken him so much that nothing matters to him anymore.

He manages half a bowl of soup before he begins to shake his head vehemently, making a sound that seems like, “I can’t eat more!”

Ellen pushes the bowl back and grabs a cloth then gently cleans up the area around Dean’s mouth. He tenses under Bobby’s hands, but he’s not trying to get rid of Bobby’s grip anymore. Could be he’s used up all his strength, could be he’s realised they don’t want to harm him. Bobby decides to hope it’s the latter and be prepared it’s the former.

“See, and now that you’re cleaned up and got something warm in your stomach, you should get some rest.” Ellen’s voice quivers. Bobby thinks it’s amazing how gently she can put her words and make her voice sound, how much she can calm a frightened, broken kid like Dean down just by shifting her inflection a bit.

They lead Dean up the stairs into the guest room. Dean trips over the stairs, and lifting his feet to ascend them puts a layer of sweat on his forehead. He pants, but he marches right on, uncomplaining. Bobby’s got his arm wrapped around Dean’s shoulder and pushes him forward gently as much as he steadies him and keeps him upright. He feels Dean leaning into Bobby’s arm; he would fall over and all the way down if the pressure wasn’t there. But he’s indicated he doesn’t want to be carried, and Bobby couldn’t bring himself to not let Dean try to walk on his own two feet at least. Maybe because it’s the only bit of the Dean he knew that has surfaced so far.

Dean sits down on the bed tentatively with big, confused eyes. The mattress sags under his weight and that makes Dean jolt. His body breaks into tremors, and Ellen leaps forward and puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He leans in against her, like he will keel over otherwise.

“It’s okay, Dean, it’s okay.”

The shivers ebb away when Dean realises the mattress won’t harm him, and he probably owes a lot of that realisation to Ellen’s reassuring words. A moment of silence follows, silence in which the rustling of the wind outside seems incredibly deafening.

Bobby’s stomach fills with knots at the sight of Dean, because boy, does the kid look starved and sick, like by rights he shouldn’t be alive anymore. His head looks oddly big on his skinny shoulders, and his legs are so thin it seems impossible they can still carry any kind of weight.

Suddenly a frown furrows Dean’s forehead, and as he glances up there’s a question in his eyes. Dean looks like he just remembered something, and for the first time he’s actually really looking at them, and his eyes aren’t dull and empty.

Bobby’s heart doubles its speed, because maybe, just maybe, everything isn’t lost yet. The moment goes as quickly as it came, and the light that just flickered up inside of Dean fades out. Ellen helps him lift his legs on the bed and nudges him to lie down, steadying him while he eases on the mattress, before she tucks Dean in. Dean glances up at her, in what could be a thankful stare, and Ellen keeps running her fingers through his hair until Dean’s lids grow heavy, and he dozes off.

“What are we gonna do, Bobby?” she asks, croaks.

“I don’t know,” Bobby replies truthfully. “I really don’t know.”

***

Mom looks five years older, Jo thinks, as Ellen comes down the stairs with Bobby trailing after her. Lines that Jo didn’t know existed are showing on Mom’s face, delicate and barely visible, but right there all around her eyes and corners of her mouth. Her cheeks are pale, and her lips are tightly pressed together. She drops on a chair next to Jo with a sigh while Bobby stands for a moment, glancing over to Sam who’s out cold on the couch.

Bobby too seems to have aged within less than a day, and the concern for the Winchester brothers is so clearly written all over his face that he doesn’t even have to say how much he worries, and how much finding them in that house, caged and beaten and starved, has shook him up. He takes his baseball cap off and rubs his temple with the heel of his hand, before he puts the cap back on.

“How’s Sam doin’?” he asks.

He doesn’t turn his head to look at Jo but Mom does. Jo tries to be accurate and matter-of-fact like because shit, the last thing the three of them need is to freak out even more than they all already have, each in their own way.

“I made him drink some water and swallow some pills. He’s got a fever, bad one. I tried to clean his wounds, but—” Her voice breaks, and she needs a moment to collect herself before she can go on. “I’m not sure it’s enough. They should be in hospital, both of them.”

Fuck all this. This isn’t right. They shouldn’t be like this, Dean and Sam, broken and tiny and driven mad by torture. The brothers who, after all they’d been through, managed to keep their kindness and compassion, who weren’t driven to become monsters not knowing mercy like that Gordon Walker.

At least their parents should be with them, John or their mom—Mary was her name, Jo remembers—and not Bobby, Jo and her mom. They are the closest to a family Dean and Sam have, and they shouldn’t be. They should have a real family.

It’s not fair, it’s not right, and she wonders that if there really is purpose and destiny in the universe, a master plan, how this fucking mess can be a part of it. If there really is a master plan, she’s signing out right now, thank you very fucking much. She’s seen enough.

“Can’t risk hospital,” Bobby tells her.

“Yeah, I know but still—” Jo cuts in. “Look at them. Don’t you think that this might be beyond our help?”

Bobby and Mom look at each other, exchange meaningful glances as if Jo’s only ten years old and won’t notice. She rolls her eyes so that they can see and suppresses the urge to hit something.

“What do you think the doctors are going to do when the boys start babbling about demons, huh?” Bobby asks calmly. “They’re completely out of it. They won’t be able to hold up a lie, heck, I don’t even think they’ll be aware that they have to. You saw them, Jo. They’re not themselves. You want them locked in a psychiatric ward because they’re telling the truth? Doctors don’t know jack.”

Jo swallows down a lump in her throat. Mom’s eyes are on her, she can feel it.

“Now,” Bobby continues, “if it should turn out that we can’t handle the situation, if their condition should not improve or get worse—we’ll take them to a hospital. But for now, we’re going to try and do it our way, okay? We know what’s out there. We know what did it to them. That’s something the doctors can’t offer.”

Jo nods. Bobby’s right, she knows it or at least her mind does. But it’s still fucked up and beyond their powers, and if she could, she’d just bolt right here and now. She can’t look at Sam and Dean, can’t bear to see them so broken and helpless. She doesn’t know what to do with them, how to help them heal and become whole again.

Her mom’s hand finds its way on Jo’s shoulder and squeezes gently, and then Mom’s lips are on the top of her hair. Mom tucks Jo’s hair behind her ear and runs over it briefly, before she says, “Let’s call it a night, shall we Joanna?”

Jo can tell herself that she’s doing just fine hunting on her own, but it’s moments like these when she realises with a start just how much she still relies on Mom’s comfort and supportive words. Then she remembers that Dean and Sam don’t have a dad or a mom, and she doesn’t even want to think about what that must be like.

She glances over to the couch where Sam’s still sleeping and drawing shallow, erratic breaths. He shivers every now and then, and his tall frame seems tiny and fragile in the twilight.

“We should stay downstairs,” Jo says quietly. “So that we can look after Sam. He needs pills and a lot of water.”

Bobby’s mouth curves to an appreciative smile.

“We’ll set up two folding beds in the living room,” Mom says and squeezes Jo’s shoulder again. “We’ll make sure Sam’s all right.”

***

Bobby wakes up early one morning when the world outside is still wrapped in blue-grey dusk and every small noise resounds like thunder in the house.

The house and junkyard are quiet like taken out of a still life movie, and Bobby lies in bed for a moment, remembering the events of the past week. The image of Dean, dirty and hurt and driven mad in the dark storms back into Bobby’s mind, and he shuts his eyes tightly before he opens them again and sits up.

God, those poor kids.

He can only guess what it must have been like, for both of them, and even that is hard enough to do. Damn, he loves those kids, almost as if they were his own, and whatever’s been done to them has been done to Bobby too. Ellen appears to be right there with him and Jo—well, dammit, she shouldn’t have seen the boys like that. She’s still so young no matter how old she acts.

He’s been sleeping fully dressed, just in case something should happen. Just in case Sam’s condition should suddenly worsen, or Dean’s, for that matter. He’s been checking on Dean every two hours at night the past few days and Dean seemed to be doing fine, well, as fine as the circumstances allow. He slept a lot, but he still doesn’t manage to keep much food down.

The part where Dean doesn’t seem to recognise any of them—not even Sam—is what makes Bobby’s insides recoil every time Dean looks at him, and there’s nothing in there, in Dean, except the fear of a wild animal that something awful is going to happen. The injuries they can patch up and the emaciated body they can feed, but nobody should have to go through this alone and that’s exactly what Dean is. Alone, trapped in his own mind, surrounded by familiars that mean strangers to him.

Sam’s not doing better either. The fever’s been coming down, but that’s about all the progress they’ve made.

Putting on shoes, Bobby finally gets up and shuffles into the hallway.

He left the door to the guest room ajar so he could hear Dean if he was in any kind of discomfort, but when Bobby pushes the door open, the bed is empty. Sheets tossed back and pillow crumpled. Dean’s not there.

Fuck. Shit. _Fuck_.

His instincts hurry him down the stairs into the living room, make him whip around towards the front door. It’s slightly opened. _Shit_. Jo and Ellen wake at the rumble of Bobby running down the stairs, one of them asks what’s the matter, but Bobby doesn’t really listen and doesn’t answer either. He just storms out of the house and stops on the porch, where he scans the surroundings briefly. Ellen approaches him, asks what’s going on, but Bobby has no time to tell her, as that moment he spots a small mound just outside the front yard, lying at the side of the dusty road. He runs.

It’s fucking cold outside, the air cutting into Bobby’s lungs as he breathes, and in the endless seconds that it takes him to reach the spot where Dean has dropped into the dirt, Bobby’s mind goes wild with images of Dean frozen to death, blue lips and grey skin, dead eyes.

Relief rushes through him when he finds Dean shivering, breath soaring up in the crystal air like smoke, before reality kicks in, and for the first time he thinks that maybe Jo is right and that the brothers belong in hospital.

Dean’s curled up on the frozen ground as if he tried to run and when that became too exhausting, dropped to the ground and tried to crawl, until that too ate up the last of his strength. His hands and bare feet—Christ, _bare feet_ —are shining red and standing out in the grey morning light. He can’t have been laying here for long and yet it’s far too long. Dean’s teeth are clattering, and his eyes are half-closed, but his head is turned towards Bobby as he approaches.

Bobby drops to his knees and collects Dean in his arms, feels the cold skin of the kid even through two layers of shirts.

“What the hell are you doin’ outside?” he mutters, but Dean only answers in his weird made-up sounds, and his inflection could be explaining or begging or apologising, Bobby can’t tell. Dean’s head lolls against his shoulder, and the kid’s hands yank up to hold on to the shirt, but the grip is without strength.

“We need to get him in and warmed-up,” Ellen says. Bobby hadn’t noticed she’d followed him down to the road.

He nods and carries Dean back to the house. Dean who is still muttering to himself but not saying a thing.

***

Dean jerks and howls in agony when Ellen puts his feet into the bowl with lukewarm water. He trembles, looking at her from wild eyes.

“I know it seems hot, honey,” she says, gently putting his feet in the water again. “But we need to get you warmed up.”

She wraps a blanket around Dean’s shoulders and then pulls another bowl with warm water close. Dean glances up, frightened, eyeing the bowl like it’s going to jump at him. Ellen reaches for one of his ice-cold hands, rubs the stiff fingers and rough skin, before she leads them into the water. Dean winces but keeps the fingers in the bowl, so Ellen repeats the action with Dean’s other hand.

Dean’s lower lip trembles, and his face is lined with pain. Ellen runs a hand through his hair quickly and says quietly, “I’m so sorry Dean, but we have to do this.”

He shivers under her hand, from cold end exhaustion. Once his limbs are warmed up she’ll make him eat more soup and then send him back to bed. She’s grateful she can keep her mind distracted that way—get him warmed up, fed and rested—because it keeps her from thinking about what must have happened to reduce Dean to this fragile scared boy without words or emotions besides fear and bewilderment.

It’s a good thing John doesn’t have to see them like this. It would have broken his heart.

Bobby sits with Jo and Sam, who’s still lying on the couch, unmoving. His eyes are half-opened, but they have a vacant expression, empty, and aren’t fixed on anything. He stares ahead not really seeing, and he hasn’t moved an inch ever since they got him here.

Her daughter actually reminded Ellen that they would have to turn Sam every two hours, if he didn’t move himself, so his wounds wouldn’t get sore. She’s grown up so fast, her little Jo, into a strong capable woman that Ellen hardly recognises at times.

Sam let the turning happen without resistance, like a ragdoll without a will of its own. When Sam’s conscious, he swallows pills and water obediently, but he doesn’t wince at pain, and he doesn’t seem to be aware of anybody’s presence.

Now that Dean’s calmed down a bit and is enduring the procedure in silence, Ellen can hear Bobby and Jo talk. Their voices speak in low tones, not to conceal from Ellen, but to not disturb Sam or scare Dean. They’ve found out Dean flinches at loud noises, and the best way to keep him collected is to speak considerately and not too loud.

“I can’t say what they did to Sam,” Bobby explains to Jo. He turns his head to Ellen when he realises she’s listening. The expression on his face makes a lump in her throat grow. Jo may not recognise it because she doesn’t know him as well as Ellen does, but worry is defining each and every one of Bobby’s features. Ellen can’t recall if she’s ever seen him like this.

She nods to him in an unspoken, _Yeah, I know_ , and he clears his throat and continues. “Might have been a potion or spell. They probably caused some pretty bad hallucinations, could be they’re still ongoing or that he’s stuck in the aftermath. You never know with the demonic stuff. They can mix up potions or cast spells worse than anything you could imagine. Maybe Sam’s already trying to come back, and it just takes its time. There’s really nothing we can do besides hope. Maybe it would help if Dean talked to him but...”

Bobby’s voice trails off, and Ellen places her hand on Dean’s arm instinctively. Dean turns his head to look at her, and he makes a squeaky noise that once again, Ellen can’t read.

***

Dean quietly sneaks out of the house one more time after that, and they find him an hour later, curled up in the backseat of the Impala that Bobby had parked in the junkyard. He wears an old pair of training pants and sweater from the trunk of the car, and at least this time there are also socks on his feet. Dean’s got his arms wrapped around his torso protectively, and his body trembles.

Bobby approaches—leaps really—and funnily, the first thought rushing into his mind is that Christ, Dean picked the Impala out of all cars so maybe he does remember a little, even if it doesn’t look like it. But that hope is wiped from his mind as soon as Bobby kneels by Dean’s side to see Dean too pale with his eyes tightly shut and his lips two thin lines. Bobby sighs heavily and carries the kid back into the living room.

They lock all the doors after that episode.

Dean never keeps still. Never. The moment he wakes up, no matter how dark the circles are that still rim his eyes or how pale his face is, no matter whether he’s been napping for ten minutes or ten hours, he gets up. They don’t realise it at first, and figuring that Dean must be tired and will just go back to sleep right away when he wakes up, they leave him alone for two hours. Then sometimes when they come to check on him, Dean’s just gone, and they have to search the house for him. One time they find him in the basement, another time curled up among books, and one day Ellen finds him in the kitchen, knives scattered around him.

In the end, someone always has to be with Dean, because he can’t be left alone, and there’s no guessing what he will do next. He staggers on his feet when he walks, tumbles forward because his body lacks strength and rest, but either he doesn’t notice or he ignores it, because Dean wanders around despite all of that. Considering that Dean can barely keep on his feet, he moves extremely quiet, almost soundlessly. When exhaustion overwhelms him, and he collapses, he only rests until he opens his eyes again, and then there’s no arguing, no sweet-talking him into anything. He gets up, and it begins anew.

He wanders around in the house like a tiger locked in a cage, joggles the door handles with his brows furrowed as if he faintly remembers that he used to open doors that way, and moves on to the next, talking quietly to himself in whimpering sounds. Sometimes he looks at Ellen and Bobby expectantly with a big question mark in his eyes, but neither of them knows the answer. Dean keeps wandering until the point of complete exhaustion, which keeps him from putting on weight and gaining strength. Eventually, Ellen starts to slip mild tranquilizers into Dean’s juice so that at least he’ll sleep through the night.

Bobby switches on the television one day, figuring that maybe it’ll be a nice distraction for everybody. Dean is walking around in the living room, going from door to window to window back to door, pacing circles. Ellen has removed all sharp objects from the living room, and the door to the kitchen is closed. Dean seems unaware of Bobby, who watches him continually out of the corner of his eye while mindlessly scanning the newspapers.

Ellen and Jo are upstairs with Sam, trying to give him a shower. Bobby helped by heaving Sam in the tub and offered in assisting them, but the girls said they would be fine on their own and somebody has to watch Dean. It can’t be easy to give the kid a shower when Sam’s so unresponsive, let alone dressing him afterwards. At least giving Dean a shower has become a little easier; he endures it like he endures many things once he realises they’re not harmful.

“Are you hungry?” Bobby asks, not expecting an answer. Ever since they started inducing Dean’s sleep with medication, no matter how little they like doing it, Dean’s more rested and a little stronger. Still, his hands shake and sweat shines on Dean’s forehead, and it won’t be long now until he’ll have to lie down again.

Bobby flips through the channels and suddenly VH1 is on—he didn’t even know he received that channel way out here—and airing a show with what is presumably the Best of Hard Rock. A song plays, sung by people with wild hair and shining electric guitars, and Dean stops dead, frozen to the spot. His body shakes as his eyes fix on the tiny television screen and music fills the room.

“Dean?” Bobby asks quietly. Alarmed. Dean cocks his head and looks at Bobby, before he breaks into another tirade of noises that Bobby can’t understand. Only this time, Dean sounds more agitated than ever, and he stares at Bobby like he’s waiting for him to do something.

“Dean—” Bobby begins, but Dean just raises his voice, adding another shade of agitation. His hands rise up and curl to fists, and he shakes his head until his too long hair is flying wild in all directions. The noises are desperate now, frantic and panicking. Bobby leaps over to Dean, whose entire body seems to be convulsing. Bobby grabs him by the shoulders, shakes him ever so slightly, but Dean doesn’t stop talking. His muscles—or what’s left of them—are tense under Bobby’s hands; it’s like Dean’s body has been electrified.

“I can’t understand you,” Bobby admits defeated. “I don’t know what—”

Dean’s legs give in then, as the panic takes its toll. He sinks into Bobby’s arms, his heart beating too fast, and a heavy sigh flies from his lips. He shivers and goes silent.

***

After a while, they decide to put Sam in one room with Dean after all. That way, only one of them has to stand guard and watch over the boys.

The boys who still don’t recognise each other.

Sam just stares or sleeps until he opens his eyes and stares into the distance again. The features on his face are hardened with pain and terror, but there’s no getting through to him. Wherever his mind is, it’s captured and not finding a way to the surface.

Dean passes by Sam, not bothering to give the stranger a closer look. They’d hoped that once Dean was with Sam more, he’d come to recognise his brother, but so far that hasn’t worked out. Dean treats Sam exactly like he treats Jo, Ellen and Bobby—people that are potentially not harmful. He only uses the bedroom at night anyway, or when exhaustion claims him at day and Bobby takes Dean up into the bedroom.

He never would have thought anything could be so terrible to make Dean forget about Sam.

Dean’s getting stronger, and eventually he doesn’t need to be spoon-fed anymore, and they begin to put more variety into his diet, but he’s no closer to finding his words again. He’s no closer to remembering.

***

He hasn’t used the fireplace ever since they brought the boys here, afraid that Dean wouldn’t remember to be careful around fire and end up accidentally hurting himself or burning down the house. So Bobby sits there one evening, in the dark because he can’t be bothered to turn on the light, staring into the empty, soot-covered hearth. Ellen and Jo have put Dean to bed, and they’re probably waiting until the pills start to do their magic and Dean dozes off.

A couple of minutes pass before footsteps echo from the staircase and Bobby whips his head around to see Ellen. She’s aged in less than three weeks, Bobby thinks. She never talks about how much the boys mean to her and how much it breaks her heart, but her actions and the worry lining her face speak volumes.

She goes into the kitchen and returns with two bottles of beer, leaving the door open. They’ll have to remember to lock it before they go to bed, just in case Dean wakes up earlier than expected and decides to sneak out of the house again.

Ellen puts one of the bottles in Bobby’s hand and drops on the couch beside him with an exasperated sigh. She rubs her temple and twists the cap off the bottle before taking a gulp, then tilts her head back.

“Where’s Jo?” Bobby asks.

“Taking the first shift,” Ellen replies, not opening her eyes.

Bobby nods.

“How’s she handling it?”

“Not very well.” Now Ellen’s eyes do open. “She had a crush on those boys when they came to the Roadhouse first time around. Particularly on Dean. It’s tough for her seeing them like this…seeing what can be done to people, no matter how strong you thought they were.”

“She’s not the only one,” Bobby mutters, drinking from his beer.

Ellen rubs her temple again. “I know.”

Silence emerges. Everything goes still, and there isn’t even rain or wind outside to disturb the quiet.

“You think they’re ever going to get better?” Ellen’s voice eventually cuts in. She tries to sound calm and matter-of-fact, but Bobby can hear the underlying fear just fine.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I hope.”

“Maybe…” Ellen says quietly. “Maybe Jo was right.”

Bobby glances at her, knowing what’s coming. Something hot drops into his stomach but he doesn’t answer, so Ellen continues.

“Maybe this is beyond us, Bobby.”

When Bobby still doesn’t reply, she goes on. She sounds tense, like doesn’t want to put this into words, Bobby can tell.

“We can’t stay here forever, Jo and I. She’s…she’s got a life of her own now. Dean and Sam are not getting better, and we can’t give them the help they need. Bobby, you can’t take care of them for the rest of your life. Not with the state they’re in. The mess they make of themselves sometimes. Sam needs so much care and Dean—he’ll get himself hurt if you don’t look after him all the time. I hate to say this Bobby, I really do but maybe—they’d be better off in a hospital. Where there are doctors and nurses and better meds and the right treatment…”

Bobby’s eye twitches, but he can’t help it. It just happens.

She’s right; he knows it with every fibre of his being. The right thing to do would be to give the boys into the care of people who are trained to do this. But the thought of the boys locked away in sterile white rooms separated from each other—like the demons locked them away—makes his stomach do somersaults. At least this way here, they’re among people who understand what might have happened, and in a place that even if it’s not home, at least it’s a place they once knew was safe.

“Give them a little more time, Ellen,” Bobby says finally. “Please.”

After a moment of consideration, Ellen nods. “All right, fine. But we can’t stay much longer.”

“I understand.”

“What are you going to do when we leave?”

Bobby looks down in the bottle. “I don’t know yet.”

***

Bobby is in the kitchen, trying to cook up something for dinner that Dean’s stomach can hold—something but soup for the third week in a row—when he hears the yell coming from the bedroom above.

Not Ellen. _Sam._

Bobby’s in the living room in the next moment, where Jo’s slouched in the couch with a paperback on her knees and staring at Bobby with wide eyes. Dean, whom Bobby had heard walking around in the living room just a few seconds earlier, has stopped rooted to the spot, eyes turned towards the ceiling. He listens, a frown drawing lines across his forehead.

Silence spreads between the three of them, like they’re all holding their breath to wait for what happens next.

Then, another agonised yell thunders from above, and a second later, Dean has moved to the staircase and attempts running it up. He falls, his body still too weak to actually run, but Dean catches himself and pushes up again, leaps up the last steps as best as he can on all fours.

Bobby and Jo stare at each other, before Jo throws the paperback aside and they hastily run after Dean.

Ellen’s sitting next to Sam, her hand running through his short hair over and over again. Sam’s body is trembling, his eyes set in that familiar vacant stare, but his features have contorted in complete and utter agony.

“I don’t know what happened,” she explains helplessly, and then another deafening holler comes bursting out of Sam’s lungs. Next to Bobby, Jo flinches and brings her fist to her lips. After all the silence, hearing Sam like that is more frightening than relieving; the pain shaping the screams is almost too much to bear.

“Sam, honey…” Ellen begins, but Sam doesn’t react and Jo turns away. She wipes the back of her hand over her eyes and Bobby knows how she feels with Sam being in such obvious pain and nothing that they could do to help him.

“Ellen,” Bobby says softly with a nod towards Dean. He stands in one corner of the room, eyes fixed on Sam, shifting his weight from one foot to the other over and over again. His hands are on his chest, cupped around each other, and he keeps mouthing quiet words.

Ellen understands. She quietly crosses the room until she stands with Bobby and her daughter, and for a long moment, nothing happens.

Then Dean takes a step towards Sam and another. Sam, who’s still shaking and oblivious of everything, most of all his brother approaching.

Dean stands there for a while, just looking, and by the doorframe, they all hold their breath, and the beating of their hearts echoes loudly through the hallway. Ellen’s got her arm wrapped around Jo’s shoulders and is biting her lip, and Jo still has a fist by her mouth, gnawing at the index finger.

Finally, Dean sinks to his knees and cocks his head, and his face brightens with the shine of sudden memory. Ellen grabs Bobby’s arm, and her fingers gouge into the flesh, but Bobby barely notices.

“Sammy?” Dean says. Not like he’s addressing Sam directly, more like it’s a magic word he just remembered, like he’s tasting it on his tongue, not sure what it means or what it will do. Like he remembers he used to say it. The word floats in the air like a fragile bubble, ready to pop.

“Sammy,” Dean repeats, and this time with more confidence. He reaches out and tentatively places his hand on Sam’s arm.

Maybe what they witness is nothing more than a reflex, maybe Dean doesn’t even know the meaning of what he’s doing. Hope dangles on a string, but it’s there. For the first time in weeks, there is hope.

“Sammy,” Dean says a third time, and this time he sounds so much like the Dean they know that a cold shiver creeps down Bobby’s spine. _Oh Christ, let this work_ , Bobby thinks, _please let it be a step forward._

The part of his arm that Ellen is holding onto has gone numb, but Bobby could care less. _Please, let this be a step forward._

Jo’s mouthing something, could be she’s praying.

“Sammy,” Dean’s voice cuts into the silence once more. He glances at his brother in confusion, maybe wondering why the magic word doesn’t work, because for all he knows or remembers something should be happening.

 _Don’t give up_ , Bobby begs Dean, wills Dean to go on. _Try again. Don’t give up now._

“Sammy?” The question has a pleading undertone now. It’s mixing with panic that surfaces in the way Dean’s voice reaches a higher pitch on the last syllable of the question. The absence of reaction seems to make him nervous, and Bobby inwardly braces himself for another of Dean’s episodes, prepares himself to jump in and calm the kid down.

Just when the threat looming over them—that nothing will come out of this, and that by tomorrow Dean will be back to his old new muttering self, lost in his fear—starts to manifest itself as certainty, Ellen grabs Bobby’s arm tighter.

Sam begins to stir.

“Oh my God,” Ellen whispers. Her voice is rougher than usual, thick with choked tears.

Sam blinks and frowns. In the dim light, they can see his eyes move slowly, trying to find something to focus on. Finally, he turns his head to look at Dean—actually _look_ at him.

Bobby wants to laugh and cry at the same time. Instead he curls his fingers to a fist and tries to keep it together. Beside him, tears are flowing down Ellen’s cheeks and Jo’s hand is covering her mouth now as if she too is fighting back tears.

 _He did it_ , Bobby thinks and realises that they both—Dean and Sam—did it. He should have known. Or perhaps he knew all along. Eventually the boys would find each other, that’s what his heart had been saying, that was the part of him that had refused sending the brothers to a hospital.

Sam looks at Dean, exhausted and beaten like he’s just come home from a battlefield, and Dean smiles. Awkward, a little unsure, but he smiles.

Sam curves his lips and smiles back.

-end-


End file.
